EMU president receives honor from Michigan State University College of Business

by Ward Mullens, Published May 01, 2009

YPSILANTI —Eastern Michigan University President Susan Martin has received the Michigan State University Department of Accounting and Information Systems Alumna of the Year Award for 2009.

The annual award is presented to only one alumnus or alumna each year.

“My education at Michigan State prepared me well for my career in government and higher education,” said Martin. “I am honored to be recognized 20 years after receiving my Ph.D.”

“This honor is based on accomplishment and the story associated with the individual,” said Sanjay Gupta, professor and department chair for accounting and information systems at MSU’s Eli Broad College of Business. “Dr. Martin is a great story and certainly accomplished.”

“After graduating (from Central Michigan University), she married and ended up at the University of Texas at Austin that led to a job as a secretary in the microbiology department. She worked there for scientists, keeping track of their fiscal grants and loved it so much that she decided to take a class in accounting,” Gupta said in his introduction of Martin. “She was the only woman in her class and was harassed by her classmates and instructors; so she decided to ‘set the curve.’ That led to her coming to MSU to earn her MBA and then a Ph.D. in accounting.”

Martin received her MBA in accounting from MSU in 1976 and her doctoral degree in accounting in 1988.

There are approximately 15,000 alumni from MSU’s Accounting and Information Systems Department. Martin became EMU’s 22nd president and first woman president in July 2008.

Prior to Eastern Michigan, Martin served as provost and vice-chancellor of academic affairs at the University of Michigan – Dearborn.

She currently is chair of the State of Michigan Hospital Finance Authority. She was originally appointed to the hospital finance authority by former Gov. James Blanchard and then reappointed by Governors John Engler and Jennifer Granholm